PJ’s in Public – WTF?!

14 Going on 40 tells me they’re going to have a PJ Day at (high) school. She’s excited to wear her Tony the Tiger PJ pants we found at the Goodwill Boutique (yes, there is such a place). She then goes on to tell me that lots of kids wear their pj’s to school all the time. Hold the phone! What?

Kids wear their pj’s to school? Seriously? WTF

I instantly turn into my mother (circa 1979) and exclaim, “That’s so disrespectful and lazy…you know there are kids in Africa would kill to have the privilege to go to a nice school and have the education you all take for granted. They would show up in their clean pressed clothes and be thankful to learn. They would never show up in pj’s for God sakes.”

After a moment of silence, 14 Going on 40 bursts out laughing and asks me what the heck kids in Africa have to do with people at her school wearing pj’s.

I stopped, looked at her and then I started laughing too. I said, “Well, apparently I’m channeling my mother who used to shame me whenever I didn’t want to eat my dinner with stories of kids in Ethiopia who were starving and would kill to have the food I was refusing.” I found this child psychology perplexing and it never worked anyway. Now I’m doing it to my kids?! “Here’s yer sign!”

Our new response to any complaining or disdain has now become, “You know, kids in Africa would kill for…!” And then we LOL!

Did your mom ever shame you with kids from other countries? Do you do this to your kids?

Stay sane, my friends.

P.S. Seriously though, I still think wearing PJ’s to school (or Walmart) is ridiculous and lazy. You?